This wording was not used initially for the displacement of Jesus* as a human example; but it indicates his deeper connection to God and to the way of creation. The nature of this connection then may still be seen in various ways. But to explain it away from the start as incomprehensible and not authentic, is simply inadmissible. This kind of formulation can be found in St. John's Gospel (John 1, John 5, John 6:69, John 7 ...), in the letters to the Colossians and the Ephesians, in Matthew 16:16 etc.; and "lived" also still in old church teachers, in mystics like Jakob Boehme, in Rudolf Steiner (Helsingfors 1912), and comes back to life in the "esoteric teachings" of the Christian wise man "Daskalos", as well as in the books of the American theologian Matthew Fox: "The coming of the Cosmic Christ. The healing of mother earth and the birth of a global Renaissance", and "The great blessing"; also in meetings of the "Evangelische Akademie at Bad Boll" concerning the question of the Cosmic Christ; and at other places.
In the Catholic church and parts of the protestant church an attempt was made
to preserve the faded proximity to this level of tradition using pure doctrines.
Other parts of protestant churches that recognized the social work of Jesus more
strongly, thought they had to drop this as a "divine exorbitance" of
Jesus. In teachings of Hindu origin the term "Avatar(s)" of different
stagesis compared with that, meaning people who are not on earth for their own
progress but voluntarily, to contribute to the progress of a nation or mankind;
as a drop "of divine perfection". However, the differences between
this type of consecutive "Avatars" in such opinions often become a
blur; while the Jewish and Christian opinion stresses the "God of
history", the aspect of the development and the special role of the Messiah
in this connection.
Here it is noted that the Koran accepts Jesus Christ as a prophet sent by God,
and as the "Word" of God, "created like Adam" (mentioned in
several places). This is more than some modern Christian theologians accept, who
see only the social reformer Jesus! Only Jesus as God's Son - Christians at the
time of Mohammed imagined this very physically - in the context of the later
doctrine of the trinity was not accepted by the Koran. At that time, there were
hardly any Christians left who werecapable of explaining this authentically to
someone of another faith.
At this point it should be emphasized, that this level of the mystery of
Christ does not mainly originate from speculative thinking, but from visionary
experiences, e.g. clearly visible in the work of Jakob Boehme; who also
shows a rare ability, to assimilate his experiences conceptually. All
experiences of a spiritual kind need indeed (self-) critical digestion; but an
appraisal of its results without considering the existence of such a level of
perception is no proper method, leading nowhere.
Neither can people with a recognisably
mystical or spiritual mission really be understood if they are historically and
critically only seen from their external socialisation, instead of including
their independent inner spiritual development.
*) The existence of Jesus is relatively well documented in history. Historians from the 1st Century A.D. such as Josephus and Tacitus confirm his actual emergence. In the biblical gospels too, the times and places of numerous events are mentioned. For example, several rulers and officials (e.g. Luke 3:1, 2, 23), can be identified by the year in which Jesus began his ministry. These same people were again to be found in historical documentation. Hence the biblical reports do not have the character of mere mythological stories. The "Apocrypha", e.g. additional Christian gospels, including texts from the early centuries after Christ, which are not part of the bible, often place less emphasis on exact reporting, but more on certain interpretations of isolated events by the various authors.
Bible text of the beginning of John 1
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